Researchers: TV Viewing Linked to Hypertension

A team of U.S. researchers found that television viewing isn’t only linked to childhood obesity but also to hypertension in children.

Researchers from the University of California-San Diego; the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego; the University of California-San Francisco; and the University of South Alabama gathered data on 546 study subjects, ages 4 to 17, who were evaluated for obesity at pediatric weight management clinics in San Diego, San Francisco and Dayton, Ohio, from 2003 to 2005. Children and parents completed a written questionnaire used to estimate the average daily time spent watching TV and a physician verbally reviewed and confirmed the time estimate.

The study, published in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, determined the amount of TV time was positively correlated with the severity of obesity.

Children watching two to four hours of TV had 2.5 times the odds of hypertension compared with children watching less than two hours. The odds of hypertension for children watching four or more hours of TV were 3.3 times greater than for children watching less than two hours of TV, the study said.